WE WALKED ALONG THE DUST ROAD as twilight hung in the air. The walk felt like a procession; as John and I passed the tin and weatherboard shopfronts where brightly dressed women sold betel nut, acquaintances stopped us to chat. We saw almost everyone we knew along the road that evening, which was strange, because we had only just decided to leave Bougainville. My two-month visa was set to expire in a week, and I had failed to acquire a new one. The courier company had simply forgotten to send my passport to Moresby the previous week. A sweet-looking man […]

In the summer of 1991 I was ten, and my father had bought a copy of American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis. He sat one Saturday afternoon in the living room in his armchair, reading it. I remember this vividly for two reasons: one was that I was both fascinated and terrified by the cover art, which depicted what looked like a man wearing a mask made of flesh; and the second was a typically understated warning from my father, who looked dourly at me over his glasses and the top of the book at once, saying, ‘You can never, […]